Visitors avoid Mexico beach area south ofSan Diego

PLAYAS DE ROSARITO, Mexico -- Assaults on American tourists have brought hard times to hotels and restaurants that dot Mexican beaches just south of the border from San Diego.

Surfers and kayakers are frightened to hit the waters of the northern stretch of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, long popular as a weekend destination for U.S. tourists. Weddings have been canceled. Lobster joints a few steps from the Pacific were almost empty New Year's weekend, usually a busy time for tourists.

Americans have long tolerated shakedowns by police who boost salaries by pulling over motorists for alleged traffic violations, and tourists know Mexico's Baja California peninsula is a hotbed of drug-related violence. But a handful of attacks by masked, armed bandits since summer -- some who used flashing lights to appear like police -- marks a new extreme that has spooked even longtime visitors.

The violence has hurt tourism mostly in the north, home to drug gangs and the seedy border city of Tijuana. The comparatively isolated southern tip, home to the tony Los Cabos resort, has remained safer and still popular with Hollywood celebrities, fishermen and other foreign tourists.